A plaint may be rejected before it is registered, and that rejection must be entered in a register, Supreme Court rules

5 November 2026

A two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court of India has settled a small but practical gap in civil procedure. Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Atul S. Chandurkar held that a trial court may reject a plaint under Order VII Rule 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure even before the plaint is registered as a suit. Because Section 2(2) of the Code treats such a rejection as a decree, the Court said the fact of rejection must be entered in a register kept for that purpose under Order IV Rule 2. Where the Civil Manual or the applicable Rules make no room for such an entry, High Courts may use the rule-making power in Section 122 of the Code to provide for it. The Court also restated how Order VII Rule 11 is to be used: the plaint must be read as a whole, material averments in it cannot be ignored, and a plaint is not to be thrown out merely because the suit might fail at the end of a trial. On the facts the Bench found that the plaint did disclose a cause of action, set aside the High Court's judgment and restored the plaint for registration.